Section 1. Congress may collect no revenue directly from citizens by any means other than a flat income tax  not to exceed 15% of an individual’s earnings. All citizens shall be taxed at the same rate, and no exceptions, exemptions or credits will be allowed.

Intent, explanation, discussion:

This provision provides for a flat tax that limits the amount of personal wealth that can be seized from all citizens by the Federal government, and insures that all citizens pay a proportional share of income. By eliminating deductions, loopholes, tax shelters and other mechanisms of shielding wealth, the highest earners will pay the same effective rate as the lowest (though a substantially higher amount). One example would be a child tax credit; those who choose not to have children (and therefore have a higher actual tax burden as they do not benefit from a deduction or services) would not be penalized. Those who choose to have multiple children are free to do so, but do not get the double benefit of reduced taxes and access to programs that provide services to them and their children from tax funding.

This provision will insure that the wealthy - who may be able to afford attorneys and accountants to lessen their tax burden - and the poor with larger families do not transfer the weight of taxation to the majority middle class. It will also provide a more stable income source to the Federal government, with more predictability and reliability. The need for a complicated tax code and sprawling IRS bureaucracy will be eliminated, saving billions of dollars a year, both to the government managing the bureaucracy, but also to the significant number of citizens who hire private firms to calculate their taxes and search for deductions.